mrweaver's blog

USA.gov, the U.S. government's official web portal, has a site that offers a range of smart phone apps. Apps are available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry, but every app isn't available for every platform. Many of these apps are actually mobile websites that will run on any web-capable device.

Have you wanted to learn javascript, a critical language in web design and development? Would you like to learn the basics so quickly that you will wonder what just happened when you've finished the lessons? I'm not even kidding.

Check out Codeacademy.com. Once you land on the page, your first lesson is waiting for you. No signup required. But once you do sign up (which is free), you can track your progress.

Truth be told, few people backup their computers at all. Whether you fall prey to malware, your hard drive crashes, or if your notebook gets lost/stolen, all of these situations can be nightmares. Losing all of your data because it isn't backed up can be a disaster.

Financial records. Music. Photos and videos. Genealogy projects. Work documents. Some of these things can be backed up with a site like the sublime Dropbox.com, but such services are a poor substitute for a full backup of your personal computer.

Lately Facebook has been inundated with image tagging scams. The way it works is, someone clicks on an image and activates an application that then infects all of their friends, "tagging" their names to images which are advertisements, some for Olive Garden (whose name and brand have been pirated for these purposes), some for established scam organizations like "Profile Peekers" and "Profile Creepers," and some that are even worse.

One day last week, as I was minding my own business searching the web at home, all a sudden new browser tabs and windows started popping up. One contained a message that kept asking me to submit a survey and would not let me close the page. That was when I knew that my system had been infected with malware.

My system has an antivirus program, a very good one; but none of them are perfect. I noticed that it had not been updating. This is a tell-tale sign of infection: a lot of malware shuts off your antivirus. Sneaky.

Given how much time many people spend on Facebook, it would be really convenient to be able to send and receive email from one's account. Facebook has announced an update to its messaging system to allow precisely that. But...as with so many times when Facebook adds new functionality, it comes with a heaping helping of scary.

Today, Google made a pretty big announcement, Google Instant. What's the big deal? Already Google suggests new keywords at you are entering your search. So, if you enter the term "major" the terms "league baseball" are suggested in a dropdown menu. With Google Instant, you see actual search results as you type.